Cross-dressing in the Iranian cinema: A poststructuralist approach

"Cross-dressing" defined as the concept of wearing female dresses by men, and male dresses by women, entered the plots of movies from the early ages of the emergence of cinema, and has still survived. The reason for cross-dressing, according to what has already been witnessed, is to gain the merits of the opposite sex, as well as the progress of the drama by the cross-dressed person. In the current article, the function of cross-dressing has been studied in 18 films of the Iranian cinema, within the poststructuralist framework of Foucault, and the post-feminist approach of Judith Butler. The movies analysis shows that there are themes in which a man dresses like a woman, or a woman dresses like a man in order to prove something to other people, or to get rid of a miserable situation. Most of the considered films are comedies, and in most cases, the films have happy endings. Based on the research findings, cross-dressing of women in the Iranian films are done out of their frustration and despair, and their secret is revealed only when a disgrace takes place, whereas cross-dressing of men is usually carried out for their personal profits.